3The Moons In Christmas Scenes
Take a look at your Christmas cards. They’re probably scenes of children out caroling, riding in a sleigh, or unwrapping their gifts. Now look at the Moon in them.
Any card or image with a waxing or waning moon is probably wrong. That moon isn’t high in the sky until about 3:00 AM, so unless the fun-loving Christmas scene happens at that ungodly hour, it’s wrong.
Dutch astronomers examined cards in 2011 and noted that America tends to get it the most right, but only because American images tend to depict full moons that are in the sky throughout the night. Overall, 40–65 percent of images were incorrect.
The Moon isn’t the only common Christmas sight that’s often wrong. Christmas is a bad time for the snowflake, which is often depicted as going against one of the fundamental laws of nature. Snowflakes can only be hexagonal, but many flakes seen on everything from Christmas cards to wrapping paper are depicted with the wrong number of sides. We’ve had photographs of snowflakes since 1885, so we don’t have much excuse for getting this one wrong.
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